Executive Summary

“Art Matters: Introduction to Visual Arts” explores the visual arts and focuses on the development of visual awareness and engagement with global artistic practices and creative processes. This resource examines a variety of artworks from an array of periods and cultures while emphasizing the development of different styles and techniques in two-and three-dimensional art media from the prehistoric through the contemporary. The materials are meant to foster a broader understanding of the role of visual arts in our everyday life and provide tools and skills to deepen and highlight your art experiences. Art Matters contains chapters covering: Visual Arts Terminology, Definitions, and Concepts, Formal Elements and Principles of Design, Materials, Techniques, and Processes, Historical Periods and Movements, and Historical Social, and Cultural Context.

Each of us experiences the visual arts from a slightly different perspective. Gaining a conscious understanding of your point of view as well as the point of view of others enables us to view and/or make art more intentionally. It also allows us to understand the way that others approach art.

We focus on promoting curiosity, close and slow observation, research, and understanding of content and value in visual arts. In this course, we do not require a textbook. Rather, our course is supported by many institutions worldwide including digital archives, academic websites, and museums that have digitized their collections and published scholarly articles and made them available to the world. Art Matters: Introduction to Visual Arts is an Open Educational Resource (OER), an openly licensed educational material designed to replace a traditional textbook.

Final Product

Art Matters: Introduction to Visual Arts

Contact Information:

Roja Najafi: roja.najafi@cgc.edu